The center boasts around 30 stalls serving traditional dishes from the Mekong Delta and Bac Lieu region.
Every day at 5 p.m., the Bac Lieu gastronomic area lights up ready to serve customers.
The seafood dishes served here are delicious and well-prepared but reasonably priced.
A large plate of clams or scallops costs a mere VND12,000 - less than US$1.
Aside from the seafood dishes, diners can enjoy regional specialties such as eel hot pot, hot beef vermicelli, and pancakes accompanied by fresh field greens.
The Bac Lieu gastronomic area is also famed for its vermicelli in broth, a typical dish of the region.
The dish is comprised of rice vermicelli, snakehead fish, shrimps, and broth.
The broth’s distinctive flavor is derived from prohok, a special Khmer-style fermented salted fish.
Visitors to the Bac Lieu gastronomic area can also try banh cong, a type of rice pancake.
Like people in other localities of the Mekong Delta such as Soc Trang and Can Tho, Bac Lieu residents also use soybean powder, rice flour and minced pork seasoned with spices and mixed with red onion cubes and steamed green-bean paste to make the special pancake.
Each pancake is topped with two shrimps, and diners can use aromatic herbs, lettuces, and other leafy vegetables to wrap the pancakes before dipping them in a fish sauce with chili and pickled carrot added to it.
In Bac Lieu’s gastronomic area, diners typically eat this kind of pancake with banh hoi, rice vermicelli arranged in layers.
Each pancake is priced at only VND5,000, less than half a U.S. dollar.
Visitors to the Bac Lieu gastronomic center can readily find dishes that are easy on the wallet but no less delicious than those of the town’s bigger restaurants.
It is, perhaps, for this reason that the expanding Bac Lieu gastronomic area is packed with customers every day of the week.
Reported by Diem Thu |
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